Recently, I provided a workshop on the topic of mentoring. Mentoring by far is one of my favorite topics to speak about because I have personally experienced how vital a mentor is to being successful! Over the years I've sought out many mentors, some I had a personal relationship with and some I had never meant and considered to be my mentor from afar.

My first mentor outside of my family was my DECA teacher. Through DECA, I received my first part time job working as a secretary. I had been working for a few months when my teacher asked to speak to me after class. He asked me how my job was going and I told him it was going great. He then showed me a file full of letters and asked me if it was my work. To my embarrassment each letter was filled with typos and grammar errors. Humiliated, I said, "Yes, this is my work." He then asked me the most impressionable question I've ever been asked, "Is this what you want your reputation to be?"

I don't remember anything else my teacher said, all I felt then and know now is that he cared about me and wanted to help me succeed. He didn't berate me and he didn't make me feel small. He was kind and compassionate. He showed he cared enough about me to talk my employer into letting me keep my job. Because of a mentor, I had the opportunity of a second chance to prove my abilities, to reshape my reputation and ultimately my future.

That one moment of feedback, compassion and mentoring was life changing. Never discount the power of a mentor.

Congratulations!You’ve succeeded in obtaining conference
approval from your manager.Great job.
Now what?Whether you are a first time attendee
or you’ve attended training conferences in the past, I have some advice for you
to make this the best conference you’ve ever attended!

Prepare

Your
first step is to prepare.Do some
research to find out what to expect.You
can do this by reading through the conference website, marketing materials,
conference social media sites, and by asking past attendees.Some of the things you’ll need to know are:

How
many attendees will be there?

Will
we be in one conference room, or several different break out conference
rooms?

Is
there a dress code?

Will
there be a great deal of walking?

Do
I need to bring any printed material or will the materials be provided at the conference?

Should
I bring my laptop, tablet or writing portfolio?

Do
I need a rental car or will a shuttle service or cab suffice?

Establish
a Reason for Attending

To determine your reason or goal for
attending, consider the feedback you’ve received from your manager or
administrative colleagues, as well as your past annual review.As you browse through the conference
materials you’ll likely resonate with a speaker or topic.Establish a goal based on these insights.You may have 1 goal or 5 goals; it’s
completely up to you.Your goals will
help guide your concurrent session attendance and will keep you focused.

Make
a promise to yourself that no matter what ~ you’re going to walk away from each
session learning something.It might be
from the speaker, the emcee, the attendees, conference or the AV staff!

Connect,
connect, connect!

One
of the benefits of attending a conference is the opportunity to connect with
others in the administrative profession.I’ve had the opportunity to attend several conferences over the years
and the people I’ve met have been key to my growth and development and have
become good friends.

To
capitalize on this opportunity, have a planned approach, such as bench
marking.You may want to learn how other
administrative staff manage their email, lead their administrative teams, or
about their job description.If you have
3 questions in mind to ask the people you meet, developing a meaningful
conversation and therefore a connection will be easy.You may want to take the time to have your
questions printed on a 3 x 5 card so you can refer to it easily and make notes
to record what you’ve learned.

If
you don’t have business cards, get them ordered or make them yourself.You want to make it as easy as possible to
help others connect with you.The time
to ask for someone’s business card and to provide them your card is after the
conversation starts flowing.Simply
walking around a large conference room and passing out your business card and
asking for their card, is not a way to create a meaningful connection.

Show
Up with Confidence and a Positive Attitude

You
are much more likely to be confident when you take the time to prepare, know
what to expect, have a goal for attending and know how to create conversation
so you can connect with others.This
prep work will help you to be able to relax and be authentic.Demonstrating a positive attitude will
increase your connection and likeability factor and will enable you to be open
minded and ready to learn.

Follow
Up by Implementing What You Learned

Make
a plan for implementing what you learned so you won’t slide back into your
routine.One of the best ways to make
the learning stick is to provide a “teach back” or a summary to your
administrative team.If you aren’t the
lead of your administrative team, ask the lead if you can share what you
learned with the team the month of your return.When you know you are on the hook for a teach back, it will drive you to
take great notes and be engaged so you can deliver meaningful content to your
team.

Thank
you

On
the trip home, review your notes and determine your top 3 take aways.What were the highlights of your
learning?These can be things you
learned from the speakers or from administrative colleagues.Once you’ve identified your top 3 take aways,
write a thank you card to your manager, not an email, stating something along
the lines of:

Mr. Manager,

Thank you for the opportunity to attend the Conference.I learned a great deal, my top 3 take aways
are:

_________,

_________,

_________,

I look forward to sharing more information with you as well
as my plans for implementation.

Thank you,

Your Administrative Extraordinaire

I
guarantee you that if you follow up with a thank you card and do what you say
you’ll do; your manager won’t hesitate to invest in your education in the
future.

The world belongs to those who show up!

Your life can be completely different based on the people you meet,
so show up!

Those
were the words I said to my basketball coach years ago. I loved basketball, being part of a team and playing competitively. I got pretty good and felt confident but I wanted
to get better, so I started playing ball with the boys. I certainly wasn’t a tom boy, far from it,
in fact I’ve always been a girly girl.
Playing with the boys was hard, they were quicker and stronger than me
and more aggressive and skilled than me.
I never did get as good as the boys, but I became a better player
because of that experience. Their skills
were so much better than me that I had to raise up my game just to be able to
stay on the court and play. Everyone once in a while I surprised them with a
three point shot or a quick steal and drive to the basket, those were good times!

I learned a lot of lessons from that experience:

When you play with someone that is better than you, your skills improve.

If you are in an environment that challenges you, you become stronger.

When someone is quicker than you, your focus improves.

Playing with someone smarter than you causes you to get mentally tough.

When you are challenged you work harder than you do in a complacent environment.

As they
say, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going!”

So the
next time you are in a challenging environment or are working for a boss with high
expectations, just remember how much you are growing and how strong your skills
are becoming. You’ll likely look back
and thank that boss for all that he or she did to help you move your career
forward!

Often the biggest problem is the person looking back at you in the mirror!

An effective way to mitigate the conflict is to ask to meet with the co-worker to discuss how to communicate more effectively.

The
next step may be even harder than the first and is absolutely vital for
a successful outcome. You must alter your attitude and perceptions
toward the other person. If you do not, you’ll bring negative energy and
baggage into the meeting. Instead of creating an opportunity to
re-build trust, you’ll actually take a step backwards because your
verbal messages don’t align with your attitude and body language. What will come across is an insincere plea.

Begin the conversation by
stating something along the lines of: “There seems to be tension between
the two of us, as well as differences. Even though there are
differences, there is also commonality. We both want to be successful, valued
and respected. Let's talk about how to create a more harmonious work
relationship where we can both reach our desired goals and be
successful.”

Once you are in a healthy mental and emotional
state you’ll be ready to listen for understanding, instead of listening
to defend or reply with a rebuttal. Focus on the future and what you can
both do to create a professional, healthy and productive relationship.

While I was going through security at the airport, I couldn't help but notice one TSA agent that really stood out. Her eyes were glazed over and she was robotic in her verbal and non-verbal messaging. As I stood in line, I continued to observe her to see if she would choose to break her routine, let her guard down, drop the wall she had put up to shield her and show her humanness to those standing right in front of her. When I was an arms length away from her I did my best to make eye contact with her and offer a smile, nothing registered, she was completely closed off. She had chosen to "check out" and just go through the motions, repeating the same message over and over again.

It caused me to wonder how often we "check out" while we're working. Choosing to only focus on our area, completely disinterested in engaging with those who come across our path. When we make this choice, we miss out on the opportunity to communicate, connect and engage with others. Let's all "Wake Up" and be aware of the world around us!

"No more backward thinking, time for thinking ahead."

I love the energy of the New Year and the positive
messaging that is flooding my LinkedIn and Facebook feeds.Isn’t it interesting that at the New Year we
wish one another a Happy New Year?What
if we had that same sentiment of well wishes throughout the year?What if we had the same positive, non-stoppable
attitude and self-discipline as we do at the first of the year?Things would be vastly differently in all of
our lives if these attitudes prevailed for 365 days instead of 30 days or
less.How do we hang onto the positive
energy?

I’ve learned that more often than not resolutions don’t
stick and that goal setting plans gets dusty.For years I’ve gone through days of goal setting, creating deadlines and
planning that would make some weary just talking about it.Although goal setting can be beneficial, for
me it had become more of a chore instead of an exciting activity to look
forward to each year.That is, until I
added an element that had been missing from the process…Feelings!Isn’t it bazaar that most of us create goals
without any thought to how we want to feel when we obtain that goal?

One of the most strategic, creative, freeing and utterly
brilliant questions I’ve asked myself is, “How do you want to feel?” Once I turned
my focus toward how I wanted to feel and understood what I needed to do to feel
the way I truly desired to feel, the idea of goal setting became exciting
again.I had new energy.The process became completely different than
it had in the past.Instead of creating
a long page of text and measurements, which often made me feel heavy with
responsibility and guilty if I didn’t measure up to my long list of goals, it
became much more emotionally based and freeing.

This new process is about embracing the possibilities
instead of striving and pushing.When
I’m pushing and striving and striving and pushing I grow weary.The goals seem too hard, too big, too much!When I’m focused on having the types of
feelings I want to have in my life, it’s about embracing the moments, the
possibilities and the success of living a life you want instead of a life about
measurement.

Here’s what I did and you can too:

1. Determine your values.Here’s a link to worksheet to help you with this process.

Ask, “How do I want to feel?”Repeat the question 5 times to uncover your
true desired feelings.

Ask, “When have a felt this way before?”“What do I do now that creates those
feelings?”

3. Create Vision Board.

Now that you have clarity about your values and feelings,
you are ready to create your vision board to guide your activities, choices and
all that you desire.

You will need:

A large stack of magazines.

An 8x10 or larger sheet of card stock

Scissors

Glue

The understanding that there are no limits, no right or
wrong choices; the only guide is your passion, values and feelings.Use these to steer you towards what your
heart and mind desires.

Begin your vision board by tearing out the images and
words in the magazines that speak to you.The images should evoke a feeling of excitement, tug at your emotions,
cause your heartbeat to increase, prompt you to say, “WOW!”The images only need to speak to you; no approval
is needed from anyone but you.The
images may represent something to you that is entirely different than what the
picture conveys to others.What is
important is that the image conveys how you want to feel and expresses what you
want to achieve in your life.

Assemble your images on your sheet of card stock in a way
that makes your heart sing with possibilities.

Your vision board is now ready to post in a place that
you will see daily.Your vision board is
a work in progress and can be updated as often as you like.

I encourage you to explore this new process.Find out your answers to the question, “How
do I want to feel?” and “What do I want/need to do to experience my desired
feelings?”Discover or re-discover your
values.Get creative.Let go of boundaries and measurements.

Let’s resolve the feelings of guilt and needing to stop doing something and instead

embrace the
possibilities for 2015!

Peggy's Vision Board

I’d love to hear from you and learn about your thoughts
and possibilities.Leave me a comment
below to start the conversation.

Ten years ago, my son Matthew joined the
Marines. I remember feeling proud and overwhelmed with fear about his decision.
I remember the two hour drive to the signing in process and wishing with all my
heart that he would change his mind before we arrived. As my husband and I
drove away, we knew that our son’s decision had forever changed his life.

Another vivid memory was when we attended
his boot camp graduation in San Diego. When we drove through the entrance we
saw a large group of young men running as part of their daily physical drills,
each one was dressed exactly the same and had the same haircut, yet we could
still pick out our son!We were so happy
to see him, even if it was at a distance.

There was a bit of a wait before the graduation
ceremony began and we were sitting in the stands with the other families,
feeling nervous and proud all at the same time.There were hundreds that graduated that day.As we sat in the stands our hearts were
overwhelmed with pride towards these young adults for what they had
accomplished and the commitment they were making to be a Marine.As our son’s name was called, our family
respectfully rose to our feet and tears streamed down our cheeks as we honored
our son.

The most vivid memory was also the one I had
feared the most – the day when he received his orders to be deployed to war.
The only thing besides faith that got our family through those uncertain times
was the support and love we received and knowing he was also receiving strong
support from our friends and family. I
am blessed and thankful to say he served our country proudly and returned home
safely.

Yesterday was the 239th birthday of the
United States Marine Corps, as a proud mom of a Marine, I would like to say,
Thank you to all of our Marines! And today is Veteran's day, what a perfect
time to thank all of our family and friends that have served or who are still
serving our great country. Regardless of our views on warfare, we cannot deny
the commitment and sacrifices of our military. Let's remember and respect the
great sacrifices made by our veteran's. Let's show compassion to the military
families. Let's honor those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice by giving
their lives while serving our country.

"Thank you" to all who have
served our great country.We appreciate
you and respect you for all you’ve done to protect us and our freedom!

A few weeks ago, my husband and I
had the opportunity to attend an incredible Cirque Du Soleil show
featuring talented dancers. We were excited for an evening
of entertained and to enjoy celebrating some recent achievements. What
we received was much more than expected. We were not only
thoroughly entertained - we were inspired. The dancers
performed with grace and strength in movement and art. It
was completely captivating and beautiful. We couldn't help but
notice how sculpted their bodies were, which gave us a glimpse into
the hours spent behind the scenes. My husband and I were dancers many
years ago and we know that having the strength to move with such grace and
precision doesn't just happen, it takes hours of dedication and commitment to
make the moves look effortless and magical. It takes teamwork
and harmony to work with the other dancers to make sure each movement
is in perfect timing with each other. It takes trust and
dependability to know your team will be there to catch you when you leap
in thin air waiting for another dancer to catch you. It takes respect for
each other knowing that each dancer is critical to a
successful performance. And last, but not least, putting
yourself out there on a stage for everyone to see takes strength, courage, passion
and confidence.

It's the same for each of us in our art, our craft, and our profession.
We all need to put ourselves out there and perform at our optimal levels.
We all need to be dedicated and committed to what we've chosen to do in
life. We all need to have teamwork and harmony with those on our
team. We all need to be trustworthy and dependable to our team. We
all need to respect those on our team and ourselves.

What a difference it would make if
we treated our art, our craft, our profession the same way as a Cirque Du Soleil
dancer!

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Welcome, I'm Peggy Vasquez

Peggy's Mission Statement:

"To Empower Others to Succeed."

Peggy's Bio

Peggy's passion and personal mission statement: "To empower others to succeed," is realized through providing workshops and presentations to audiences around the world and by providing support to executives. Peggy has been described as "energizing and dynamic, creative, down-to-earth and a poised professional speaker." Her messages are delivered with passion, motivation and inspiration. Due to her diverse background, she is able to relate to a wide range of people. Her audiences feel immediately connected to her as she candidly shares her experiences and knowledge while challenging them with a call to action. Participants often tell her that she was the highlight of the conference. In Peggy's latest book, "Not, Just an Admin!" Peggy will empower you by sharing her knowledge and experience, entertain you with humor, and inspire you through passion. Peggy's objective is to help administrative assistants feel valued and know their contribution makes a difference. It is her desire to eliminate the saying, "I'm just an admin." Peggy has been the Chief Executive Assistant to the Director of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory since 2005.